At Least I Still Have My Right Leg

I'm rather behind schedule on my posting, so the Vuelta Maestrazgo was actually last weekend. This weekend's racing went just as well if not better. Instead of going to the Vuelta Cartagena with the other half of the team, I raced two seperate races here close by. Saturday I got into a 6 or 7 man break with two other teamates of mine, one of them being one of our strongest. Until our breakaway arrived at the base of the big first cat 1 climb, my job was to deliver Dani with the biggest time advantage possible, so Fran (my other Grefusa rider in the break) and I pulled at the front with just about all the energy we had. There was a long straightaway section of highway at one point where the wind was so strong against us that we were hardly able to maintain a 15mph pace. But we did our job well- Dani arrived with a 15 or 20 advantage over the main group and went on to place third overall. The winner of the race rides for the Kelme amatuer team and has already been signed for their professional team for the coming four years. Rider's like him make the racing here really, really fast.

Yesterday I was in a good group after the first main climb but I flatted on the descent. I think I came as close as I ever have to buying the proverbial farm going through one of the curves. I was following a Kelme rider just after making it over the summit of the climb as he was trying to catch up to the lead group. I started breaking too late into one of the turns and my rear wheel locked up. Once inside the curve, my front wheel took the correct path towards the following straightaway but my rear wheel slid out 45 degrees to the outside of the turn, skipping and hopping over the bumbs and gravel. Just in time, it caught once again and I made it out of the turn upright. Unfortunately, the lateral force from skipping sideways like that ripped a small tear in the tube of my tubular tire and a few moments later I had flatted completely. But the annoying job of repairing and removing the tire (the tires on my race wheels are glued on in one piece instead of being held on by the pressure of a normal tire and tube) loses all of its importance when you compare it to what happened to a kid racing in the other tour this weekend. He was in a breakaway and on the descent had a crash. At about 40 mp, he fell into and older model of the side-guard road barriers that are made of sheet metal with unrounded, sharp edges. Moments later, my roomate passed his bicycle, the kid, and about 20 feet later his right leg- completely severed from just below the knee down. That just about makes me want to never race again...